It is with mixed feeling that I announce slh intent to "orphan" his position in the Kanotix engine room. He left a message for the team members in an internal section of the forum, that gives reason for his actions.

I hereby I resign from all positions within in the Kanotix project because of
technical and personal disagreements about the status quo. Therefore I suggest
changing all passwords I might have had access to (including the webserver,
different login passwords, postnuke accounts etc.) and locking my account on
the forum. I've already withdrawn my key from kanotix-archive-keyring.

Why do I resign after two years of hard work for Kanotix?
As expected this isn't easy to answer and has evolved over time, but technical
and personal disagreements make this step inevitable and non revocable for me.
In particular I object about:
- almost one year without any form of suitable release:
- this is an eternity for an debian sid based distribution, clean upgrading
from the latest release to current -sid is no longer possible
- no significant technical progress in those >11 months from upper leading
personnel, planned milestones slipped, finished code improvements were
neither incorporated nor even tested
- seriously deteriorating inter project communications and working athmosphere
- unequal distribution of workload and/ or responsibilities
- a siginificant shift of agenda in ways I can- and will not endorse

In particular I would like to thank all developers and team members who have
contributed a lot to the existing success that made this project possible,
namely (in alphabetical order):
acritox
bfree
bluewater
BodhiBaum
cathbard
cleary
corpix
devil
etorix
h2
kelmo
locsmif
makke
mzilikazi
peter_weber69
RoEn
slam
webera
wolfi
x-un-i
all others who have contributed their experience, time and code over the last
three years and of course knopper and Fabianx for providing motivation, a proof
of concept, and the initial code base, mipooh, N_knx, the university of
Braunschweig and in particular blutengel and Shoragan, slam, BlueByte and
Hetzner for hosting and further infrastructure.

Although it might have been better to speak up sooner, it is the way it is.

Good luck with the further development of Kanotix.
Regards
Stefan Lippers-Hollmann

Post scriptum:
I'm not going to post this in publicly accessible parts of the forum, if any of
the remaining team members likes to publish this, license to do so is hereby
granted under the provision that this intent is posted verbatim including its
(verifiable) gpg signature.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

* The Kanotix software repository will most likely never be cared for again . At least, it won't be cared for with the amount of precision and attention that slh was capable of.

* I no longer have a suitable method of contributing the the Kanotix project.

This means that the usefulness of the Kanotix repository will eventually expire, and that people will have to brave Debian Sid on their own, or join another group that aims to track that exciting and rapidly developing "software wave".

Yes, some other project will exist, and it will aim to follow Debian Sid in the same manner Kanotix has done until this day. The details of that project will be discovered in due time, hopefully by those people who are most passionate about it.

For now, I would only like to say a few things:

* Thanks to Kano, slh, the team of supporters and users for a great time over the last 18 months or so. During this time, I learnt more than I ever hoped to know about Linux, Debian and FOSS community and development.

* Thanks specifically to slh for sharing with me the precious knowledge of caring for project software and its user base. He has great development instinct and principles that i was priviledged to learn from during my involvement with Kanotix.

* All the best to Kano in the future. I hope you find some method of fulfilling the desire to conquer gadgets, devices and methods of "making things work" with a healthy level of personal and financial prosperity.

* Good luck to the people that decide to track Sid, and aim to help users join that wild ride (via live-cd, bug-fixes packages/scripts/advice etc). One day in the (hopefully not so distant) future, I hope to directly contribute to that effort.

Thanks, Kel.

titan

Titel: RE: Kanotix Departures Verfasst am: 30.11.2006, 16:31 Uhr

Anmeldung: 07. Mai 2005
Beiträge: 526
Wohnort: Waliser Märze

Thanks kelmo for sharing Slh's e-mail with us mere Kanotix users. Key people leaving projects is not unusual but the absence of any information from Kano and Slh's reasons for leaving are concerning. What is the future of Kanotix it is only fair to the thousands of users to give some indication of the route Kano intends to take Kanotix I think most current users would probably be happy with kanotix based on Debian testing but I also think many others would not like any connection at all with Ubuntu.

devil

Titel: RE: Kanotix Departures Verfasst am: 30.11.2006, 16:49 Uhr

Team Member

Anmeldung: 06. Mai 2005
Beiträge: 3087
Wohnort: berlin

titan,
only kano can and will anwer that, when he has made his decision.

greetz
devil

_________________<<We are Xorg - resistance is futile - you will be axximilated>>

Thanks for the heads up Kelmo.
Thank you for all your hard work Slh,you will be missed as will kanotix as we all knew/know it.

I am not leaveing here anytime soon,too many good people here.
I would ask though,if possible,if some of the regulars here have another project in mind,if you can,please pm me where you will be going and on what you will be working on,whatever it will be I am sure you guys will make that particular project a better one.I saw one mentioning,slam I think,about another project but wont post names,details or links here.

Kano,you do what you need to.

Thank you

spottyrover

Titel:Verfasst am: 01.12.2006, 04:18 Uhr

Anmeldung: 11. Apr 2005
Beiträge: 137

I wish Slh a future he is looking for

I also thank all of the people in the kanotix project as without you guys I am sure that I would not have persisted with linux. your help on the forum has been extreemly valuable and quick.

I hope this project keeps going

thank you all

Dave

rich.bradshaw

Titel:Verfasst am: 01.12.2006, 12:05 Uhr

Anmeldung: 14. Jan 2006
Beiträge: 287

What happens now then?

Will Kanotix continue to exist?

kenyee

Titel:Verfasst am: 01.12.2006, 14:31 Uhr

Anmeldung: 21. Jan 2006
Beiträge: 185

Thanks for the info kelmo.
I hope slh finds what he's looking for as well. It sounds like he was the main force that made Debian sid stable enough for us Kanotix users to depend on, and if that's true, I can understand how kano would be looking at alternatives...I disagree w/ switching to Ubuntu though. After all, why switch to another distro based on Ubuntu when you can just use Ubuntu since it doesn't need as much work to keep stable as sid. What made Kanotix interesting to me was the Knoppix hardware sensing packaged with "the latest" Debian sid packages

bryan_e_boone

Titel:Verfasst am: 01.12.2006, 16:58 Uhr

Anmeldung: 05. Jan 2006
Beiträge: 118

...and that the AMD64 repository was rock solid, too.
The hardware recognition, Debian, and stableness (as well as the great folks on the IRC) were the reasons I chose Kanotix for my development box. I didn't have to fight the OS in order to get my stuff done. I hope there's a good migration planned for whatever decision Kano makes. I'll keep using it as long as it's there.
-Bryan (Askani)

_________________What is, is

kenyee

Titel:Verfasst am: 01.12.2006, 22:23 Uhr

Anmeldung: 21. Jan 2006
Beiträge: 185

ditto the amd64 repo. It was usable before even Debian's 64-bit repo was usable...

anthonws

Titel:Verfasst am: 02.12.2006, 13:47 Uhr

Anmeldung: 03. Jan 2005
Beiträge: 19
Wohnort: Portugal

Thanks for the follow up.

I want to say that I, as a normal Kanotix user, appreciate all the efforts made by slh.

It is normal to people evolve and acquire new objectives.
We all do that every day...
From this point forward I wish the best of luck to slh.

To all the Kanotix team I also desire the best of luck and the continuation of a wonderful job!
People come and go, I hope soon you will find someone that can fulfill your needs.

Without Kanotix and all is team members I wouldn't had half the Linux know-how and the will to persist using it.

As always a special thanks to Kano.

Best regards to all.

Sincerely,
António Vasconcelos.

clampin

Titel:Verfasst am: 03.12.2006, 15:44 Uhr

Anmeldung: 10. Dez 2005
Beiträge: 1

Hi everybody,

I don't have anything to say about all these sad words I discovered yersterday, reading both Kano and Slh.

Without any support on my side, and with real difficulties to stay in touch online, I tend to receive the message as a perfect consequence of a totally different kind of reasons both Kano and Slh invoke. I do not think that the main problem with such a projet has to do with lack of financial support, or the fact they were not any "final release" this year. Though i surelly admit these are discouraging.

I rather feel all of this like a consequence of to much personnal involvement on both sides, Kano having some kind of advance on this level when slh began to invest himself nearly the same absolute way. And though this is just intuitive, it seems to me the lack of clarity about the meanings and the objectives of the Kanotix project did not help to hang on when things were going bad.

As a user and in some way I may say as a "parasite" of the projet, coz i intented to remaster the distro in french for specific reasons, I tried on my side to clarify the insterest of the project. I explain it hoping it may help for things to get better.

First technically :

- The distro works using the same media as a live and installable system
- Its component recognition features are the best ever known
- It uses Debian packages and Apt
- The installation of it on disks is easy and quick

I began using KANOTIX in january 2004 and progressively get to use the distro as the single OS for all my computer needs since then and until this day.
Here in France I installed several remastered versions of KANOTIX-2006-01-RC4 and except for a few unimportant bugs (need to call ALT+F7 to go back to graphical environment, small error messages at boot) its technical performance makes it still a very attractive tool. The only problem has to do with what I would call the generic problem with recommending Linux to common people. Even before speaking about the exasperant changing in dependancies and stability among Sid packages system.

Most people have already an operating system and programs. And for most people this existing environment is already a technical challenge. Not to mention the bad quality of the one i am speaking of, which is not essential on that purpose. For this reason I intended to modify my project for a remastering of Kanotix in order to change the potential motivation for a first use. I planned to propose a yearly-based public DVD publication which video and multimedia contents could only be accessible booting in live mode, offering the system as a kind of bonus. Though it may seem perverse, I though it might help people to undestand some basic reasons for using GNU/linux. And it also helps to emancipate lobbying for free software from the inner circle promoting tool for tool, tool for its features, and no other meaning.

The technical advantages largely distributing such a media DVD, would be to offer all people each year, an easy-to-install and free-to-use software environment, and also an actualized huge amount of public and educational information, for the coming year or more. So it would have been the "stabilized" Debian Sid slh desperatly invoked. I found some specific pratical solutions to obtain an approching product this summer and last weeks following the succession Rc versions of Kanotix and using both collected new and old packages to completed it making a french live-DVD. To this I added the french version of the Kanotix Manual. I thought and I still hope there will be following releases for Kanotix as I still consider this base as the best one may use for such a child-project.

And what I would say too, is that planning to obtain a completly stable environment, easilly and directly usable and installable withought any further operation, is from far the most interesting perspective for me using Kanotix. This, and having to much involved myself at times on a project or another, leads me not to be surprised about the misunderstandings among the Kanotix project itself. Too huge amount of involvement and work may only lead to this. At such a level, though hard words may be exchanged, it's only human nature revolting. Geeks bodies revolting.

So in any way I would agree to slh when he seems to consider total abandon of the tasks he was involved in as a standable reaction. Even when Kano, as it in any way appears through words, has shown unstandable reactions after too much involvment, and shown lacks of confidence with his co-developpers. I still think Kanotix (maybe some effort to rename the project a less "personnal" way, and an opened debate about the objectives may help in the future...) is a deeply interesting project and that its rich and friendly community deserves more than just a "thank you" after desperate attempts to get some relief not even realizing both the destroyfull potential of your behavior.

So to say to both Kano and Slh : don't blame it on one or another. Blame it on your own overinvestments, and above all have some rest and leave the door open for the efforts all people interested thank you for, not to lead to such a stoopid play.

I am sure as Slh writes, that KANOTIX is the interesting project. I hope Kano will soonly remove the bad vibrations he published as a reaction on the first page of Kanotix website as I personnaly, though a simple user very attached to the project though, not to speak about the bunch of derived work I am still involved depending on your efforts, I received this as a violence. I read the message as the worst news of this year.
And though of course they are very bad things going on on the planet, being involved in a voluntary project does not allow people to consider users of their work with so much lack of respect.

You worked for us to get interested. Now go on and face your responsabilities. We are interested. You both have to hang on now, even when doing it means having some rest first...And lots of efforts will have to follow. On my side here I try to find some financial support to help the project going further. Nothing is sure but in anyway it will take some time. You deserve more than making fools of yourselves. I won't say it in the name of the project itself but instead in the name of all the other people who before you involved in free software offering you the material your dealt with.

I just wanted to tell you not to let Kanotix team dissolve for personnal disagrements ; and in anyway keeping things for yourself waiting for the conflict to explode in the face of all other people is a very bad way to stand as project leaders or even as simple team members. I whish you will consider your ability to solve and face the problem of the curent situation as the only credible way to be considered as reliable team pals in any future project in any way.

Though we never met (and I keep on hoping for it to happen someday...) I now feel deeply sorry and friendly for both of you. And whish you the best anyway.

Philippe Masson
France
LjanA

shame

Titel:Verfasst am: 03.12.2006, 16:42 Uhr

Anmeldung: 16. Apr 2006
Beiträge: 207
Wohnort: England

Well this is sad news indeed. If I hadn't discovered kanotix, after bad experiences with a couple of other distros, I probably wouldn't be using linux now.
In fact the first I heard of this was a reply by kano to a problem I was having in which he linked to this page - http://techpatterns.com/forums/about736.html.
I hope kanotix doesn't become another ubuntu based distro as I think that will pretty much kill off kanotix altogether but I'm sure kano will do what he thinks is best. I'm not aware of any distros being based on debian testing so I would like to see it go that way and I would continue to use kanotix in that case.
Iwish everyone involved all the best.

I was thinking if it was ethical to write about another distribution in this forum, but I've noticed that someone has mentioned sidux on german forum. Sidux is solution for someone who still wants to use distribution based on debian sid. I think that someone should give such information for kanotix users who could feel deserted. We as community have debt toward kanotix developers, but kanotix developers have also debt toward community.

shame

Titel:Verfasst am: 03.12.2006, 20:54 Uhr

Anmeldung: 16. Apr 2006
Beiträge: 207
Wohnort: England

Well I've already cloned my kanotix partition and I will upgrade that to sidux and
run that and continue to run kanotix also and see how things progress with both.
I suppose sidux is the logical step for those who use kanotix as a debian sid shortcut (as I did originally) and the hardcore fans will continue with kanotix depending on what direction it goes.

Well this is sad news indeed. If I hadn't discovered kanotix, after bad experiences with a couple of other distros, I probably wouldn't be using linux now.

[...]

I hope kanotix doesn't become another ubuntu based distro as I think that will pretty much kill off kanotix altogether but I'm sure kano will do what he thinks is best.

[...]

Iwish everyone involved all the best.

Well I would not be able to express it better. Very sad news not even that slh leaves - additional the news that a big change is planned and that there may be a future as ubuntu based distro seem not very good to me.

As shame wrote I have to say that I wouldn´t use Linux if there wouldn´t be Kanotix (tested Suse 8.3, Suse 9.1 and Fedora Core 3 before).

Therefore I wish slh, everyone of the remaining team and everyone who uses Kanotix good luck and an excellence future.

Thanks for an outstanding performance so far!

Greetings,
BlackVoltage

EDIT: If you visit the following link you will find a link for a german guidance how to upgrade kanotix to sidux ... well I will have a look at it but I worry about if it has compareable great scripts to install drivers, to update the kernel and so on. => http://wordpress.com/tag/sidux/

Very Interesting indeed ... former (and perhabs still) Kanotix team members have joined sidux:

Zitat:

"There is definitely much more to say - but that's it for the beginning. Please understand that we need to prepare the first release carefully. The project is in its very first days after foundation and will need some weeks until everything works perfectly. Stay tuned, we will keep you updated!